


Always Make a Happy Plate

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Diners, Attempt at Humor, Blogging, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, maybe? lol, side junshua
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: Life isn't exactly what Mingyu ordered, but he's having it served to him anyway.





	Always Make a Happy Plate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [historiologies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/historiologies/gifts).



> HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LOVELY LOVELY SOULFRIEND!!!!! i know you were probably expecting soonwoo so i'm sorry if this lets u down BUT consider this: a) every one of your other friends who are all EXTREMELY talented wrote you soonwoo, and i am therefore providing you with variety, and b) i promised a long time ago to write you seokgyu and this au has been sitting around in my head for so long that i finally wanted to give it to you. i hope you like it even though it's not soonwoo!! and i'm so glad i finished it (barely) in time for your bday!! maybe the execution isn't as good as i want it to be, but i still hope you'll enjoy it, and even if you don't, know that my deep and cherished love for you is behind every single word anyway. i love you so much and i hope you have the best birthday of all time!!!

The name the diner’s founder chose was probably a bit too ambitious: Mirror. It sounds a little fancy, a little more high-class than the vinyl booths and creamy linoleum tile warrant, but that was the name he wanted, so that was the name he stuck with. Something like he wanted the guests’ plates to look like mirrors by the time they paid the bill, licked clean of every speck because the food was so delicious. Definitely a stretch, especially considering the mediocrity of the restaurant’s first head chef. Though the initial owner is long gone, the victim of copious unpaid debts and a bankruptcy claim, most aspects of Mirror remained unchanged, from the malfunctioning jukebox all the way to the lofty name.

It was only about ten months ago that the restaurant’s second head chef, marginally better than the original but still not anything to write home about, was forced to leave on account of a sudden spousal relocation. With the place just barely in new hands and no backup of which to speak, management was left scrambling to find someone to fill the position on short notice, and none of the other kitchen staff wanted to be the one to catch the title. Only by a great stroke of luck did Mingyu chance to walk in after seeing an ad for the job.

His degree was in marketing, but the job climate in town was too dry for him to use it, so he’d been doing loveless grunt work in the past three years since his graduation. Fortunately, he’d also taken a break in the middle of his university career to take classes at culinary school, so the advertisement seemed like just as much of a godsend to him when he saw it as it did to the manager when he walked in to ask about it. He was incredibly desperate for an opportunity not to feel like his soul was draining out of his body while on the job, and he liked cooking, so he figured he’d try it out. He’d have had to pay them to let him walk out unemployed.

Now that he’s behind every dish, Mirror is slowly but surely creeping closer toward the lavish dreams of its name. Their first positive critic review came three months after Mingyu’s assumption of the position, and the manager tacked it up to the wall in the kitchen, tiny blurb ringed by a thick red line of Sharpie, with a smiley face directly to its left and a note reading _Keep up the good work!_ Junhui, Mingyu’s lean assistant head chef (and sometimes waiter and sometimes host and sometimes manager, depending on what shoes need filling), even took him to dinner to celebrate, though he drank too much and started crying, so Mingyu hasn’t gone out with him again since.

Mostly, he likes the job. Though it isn’t what he envisioned for himself during his accounting classes, and it certainly isn’t what his parents envisioned for him when they signed the checks to pay his tuition, it could be much worse than it is usually. But that’s not to say he always enjoys it. Due to the high school a few miles down the road, for example, they’ll sometimes get disgustingly busy rushes on late Friday nights after football games, maybe a hundred teenagers who aren’t sure what they want pouring in through the door an hour before the sign says they close. Times like now.

Mingyu smacks the little bell on the counter and pinches another ticket between chrome and porcelain, ignoring the glare Minghao the server sends him in favor of going back to tend the million and a half things he’s got running on the stovetop. Kids these days. Ingrates, all of them. Degenerates. His parents would have killed him if he went out to eat this late when he was in high school, would have killed him twice if they knew he was screaming like some of these punks. Yes, he’s sure Johnny from physics is _incredibly_ handsome, but he doesn’t know how long he can stand to hear about it. Johnny himself can probably hear it at that volume. He flips a pan full of eggs with a little more force than the task calls for.

“Relax,” Junhui sings at him from four feet away, where he stands preparing as much as he can while he waits for Mingyu to get the bulk of the cooking done.

“I’m relaxed,” Mingyu tells him through gritted teeth. He’s too genuine a person to be anywhere near decent at lying, and Junhui’s told him as much before, but it makes him feel better to pretend it doesn’t stress him out anyway. Junhui hums while he slides plates across his little counter.

“That so?” Obviously he’s not convinced. Muted humming still weaves its way through Mingyu’s ears. “Carry on being so super relaxed, then. Just ignore little old me.” He laughs when Mingyu grumbles back at him.

Mingyu doesn’t understand why he opted to stay as the second in command while someone new stepped in as head chef; he’s worked here almost since the very first grand opening, under the original management, and he’s a lot more easygoing than Mingyu is, definitely better at handling the teenage hellhound rushes like these. It’s probably got more to do with the hours than with the tasks. Junhui is what the kids these days like to call “married,” wears a nice gold band on a necklace so he doesn’t get it dirty while cooking. Mingyu thinks his spouse has come in before because Junhui’s come back into the kitchen looking even more chipper than he had walking out, but he’s never laid eyes on whoever it is. Must be nice, Mingyu thinks, to have a reason to take fewer hours. He slams another plate down on top of a ticket and hammers the bell again with his palm. For the millionth time in a row, he ignores Minghao’s glare.

Mirror has irregular hours for a restaurant. Where most places are open every day, with maybe abbreviated hours on Sundays, Mirror closes completely on Sundays and doesn’t open until three on Mondays. Mingyu has never understood why this is the case—though suspects it’s mostly due to tragic understaffing—but he is certainly not one to complain about the extra sleep. After getting out an hour and a half later than usual on Friday night, he walks in Saturday morning more than ready for the day off waiting on the other side.

Saturday mornings are usually a little slower. As they’re mostly out of the way of everything except the high school down the road, there’s little business to speak of when all those shitty adolescents are sleeping in until two. The counters still look atrocious from the abuse they suffered last night, so Mingyu busies himself cleaning them while he waits for Junhui to come in, nostrils flooding with the smell of bleach he technically isn’t supposed to use on this surface but always does anyway. A bird is singing outside. If not for the scent, he could almost fall asleep.

The hour wears by slowly, achingly, until he finally hears the ugly rumble of Junhui’s engine pulling into the parking lot then cutting abruptly like a growling animal killed for silence’s sake. Junhui’s keys jingle when he walks in, and he slots a whole roll of quarters into the jukebox and gives it a solid kick to liven the place up for the zero customers they’re going to get all morning. Mingyu refuses to bring money for the jukebox out of resentment at still having to pay as an employee, but Junhui dutifully loads it up every time he comes into work, even keeps a tab of how much Mingyu technically owes him if they were to split the cost in half. By now, it’s probably close to a paycheck.

“Morning,” Junhui chirps when he steps into the kitchen, tying his apron strings into a bow. He’s so upbeat all the time it’s almost nauseating. Mingyu can just picture the good morning kiss he likely got this morning, and he doesn’t want to be grossly jealous, but he is massively grossly jealous. “Smells a little bleachy in here.” He slides the ring off his finger and pops it onto the silver chain around his neck. Some people have it all.

“It’ll be fine by the time we have any customers.” Mingyu rinses a rag in the sink before swiping the counters to the dull shine of perfect cleanliness. “They were nasty.”

“Speaking of the time we have any customers,” Junhui grunts, “that is gonna be a lot sooner than usual. I saw a couple guys sitting in a car in the parking lot eyeing up the open sign.”

“What?”

“They had hungry eyes, Mingyu.” He sways to the music despite the way his news deflates Mingyu’s will to live. “They’ll probably come in as soon as we open.”

“Which is, uh…” Mingyu looks at his wrist, but just like he has every day for the past three months since it broke, he forgets there is no watch there. “How long from now?”

“Whenever Channie decides to turn the sign on, I guess.”

“Damn.” Chan always turns it on as soon as he walks in the door, dutiful bastard. If only they had a lazier waiter coming in this morning. Like Vernon. Only he switched shifts with Chan because he was too lazy to come in.

“He’s not here yet. You have time. Let me—”

The little silver bell on the door has never sounded so much like a bomb siren, nor the click of the switch to the open sign so much like a gunshot. Mingyu looks to the ceiling with the eyes of a convict planning the grandest escape of all time, but rather than leap through to the roof and skip town, he stands still while Chan moseys his way back, humming along to the jukebox tune Junhui rigged up for him. Everybody’s humming today, it seems.

“Morning,” Chan chirps when he walks through the kitchen to clock in. His shoes squeak on the tile when he makes an abrupt stop. “Man, it smells really bleachy in here.” Seems everyone’s noses are working today as well.

“Countertops,” Mingyu explains. “Did you turn the open sign on?” He already knows the answer.

“Yeah, when I walked in. Why?”

“Could you turn it off?”

“What? Why?”

“Bleach?” Mingyu gestures at the still-coated counters in case Chan’s forgotten where the bleach is. “They’re not clean yet. I can’t make anything while there’s _bleach_ all over the _counters_.” He gestures more fiercely. “The customers will _die_. We’ll get _sued_.”

“Uh, okay, I guess I can—”

It’s too late. The bell sounds, the gong to close the final piece at a shoddy middle school band’s concert, and then Mingyu can see them through the thin rectangular opening between the kitchen and the dining room, two guys who look like they’re naturally very loud but working hard to be quiet. For a few moments, they look around like they aren’t sure whether the restaurant is open, and Mingyu clings to a hope that they’ll decide it’s not and leave, but one of them takes a second look at the open sign and confirms that it’s on, so he resigns himself to die. Chan looks at him with wide eyes, the single deer in a world of headlights.

“Stall them,” Mingyu whispers.

“How long?” Chan whispers back.

“Ten minutes.”

“That’s so many!” Only seconds before Mingyu’s frustrated screams can echo through the building, Junhui grabs Chan by the shoulders and pushes him out to stall. Thank Christ. He’s an expert at distracting people.

“Morning, gentlemen!” His voice is booming, maybe to disguise the sound of Mingyu hastily wiping every trace of bleach off the countertops. Doesn’t matter what true the reason is, Mingyu figures, as long as it gets the job done.

He doesn’t listen to much of the conversation, too focused on the urgent lawsuit avoidance at hand, but he does catch a few things while he hurries. Something about one of the guys has a cousin who goes to the school down the road and told him he absolutely _had_ to come eat here sometime. As much as Mingyu is thankful for the free advertisement, it doesn’t keep him from glaring at the countertops while he swipes his rag over them, wondering which horrid gremlin could have been the one behind this. Whoever it is better give him a gift next time for ruining his peaceful Saturday morning.

“And my buddy runs a food blog,” the guy continues, accompanied by the sound of a palm smacking a clothed back, “so I brought him along.”

Mingyu’s spine stiffens, and he doesn’t have to see Junhui or Chan to know theirs do, too. Food blog. His brain repeats it over and over. Food blog. He wrings the rag out in the sink and rinses it again, wipes down the counter again, repeats. Someone who runs a food blog is in this building right now. A food blog means a food review. A food review means more business, more prestige. Or less business and prestige, if the writer of the review happens to eat food still tainted by the bleach that was on the countertops just moments before he walked into the building. Food blog. Why does it have to be now? Why not an hour from now?

There’s a chance it could just be bait so they get better service—why else bring it up?—but Mingyu probably can’t afford to take the risk, and their manager would probably harvest his organs and make him go on living without them if she found out. So he cleanses the countertops a final time and inhales a strong whiff to check that all bleach has been fully eradicated, busies himself checking over all the kitchen equipment three or four times and all the contents of the fridges five or six. He needs an excuse not to listen to any more of the conversation and get more worked up than he is already. Food blog is still on repeat ad nauseum in his head.

It’s not much later that Junhui comes back into the kitchen with hasty strides. “One of them runs a food blog,” he whispers, urgent. He doesn’t look very concerned at all, but it’s still higher than his typical level of not really giving a shit about anything. It’s going to give Mingyu an ulcer.

“I know,” he hisses back. He can hear Chan’s voice out there, tone some mix between small talk and order-taking, but his blood pressure has just spiked through the roof, so he can’t really make out the words as well as he’d prefer. “Damn it. I hope they order something easy.”

“They seem nice.” Junhui slaps his back too hard. “Don’t freak yourself out.”

“I’m not freaked out.”

“Oh yeah? Carry on, then.”

Chan’s head pops into the rectangle carved out of the wall, ticket gingerly pinched between his fingers. “Mirror Omelet, no mushrooms, order of hash browns on the side, extra crispy. Good Morning Platter, sunny, extra bacon.” He leaves the ticket on the shining bar of chrome without any further words and turns on his heel to go pour two glasses of water.

If this is a horserace and Mingyu the steed, that order is the gunshot. Chan fires it and stalks off while Mingyu’s entire body kicks into gear. Omelet. Eggs. Bacon, chorizo, spinach, bell pepper, tomato, olives, cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, mushr— _no mushrooms_. And hash browns. Potato. Mingyu is only thinking one word at a time, barely connecting thought to action for fear he’ll think _too_ much and start doing the wrong thing, and he’s beyond grateful Junhui is already greasing up the skillet and fluffing potato shreds into it because it might be what’s keeping him from short-circuiting. He beats the eggs dizzy while he wracks his brain. What the fuck is in the Good Morning Platter?

Chan said extra bacon, so there must be bacon. Sunny, so there are eggs. What else? Mingyu’s mind is drawing a blank. The eggs sizzle when he pours them into the pan, but it doesn’t come to him. Slowly, slowly, he draws the spatula through a sea of yellow, folds the curds.

“What’s in the Good Morning platter?”

Junhui looks at him. “What do you mean, what’s in it? You came up with it.”

“I did?”

“Not freaked out, my ass.” Junhui flattens his spatula over a layer of hash, draws out a nice steaming sound. “French toast. Three slices of French toast, two eggs, two bacon strips, hash browns.” He frowns at the pan. “Right?” Mingyu groans. Useless! But it does ring a bell, so he can’t say anything.

“I think that’s it.” He’s reaching for the bread already regardless, so if the Good Morning Platter does not in fact contain French toast, he just hopes the food blog guy is the one who ordered the omelet. Just before the little bowl of extras goes into the still-gooey pool of egg, Mingyu checks to make sure nothing in it is a mushroom. A vaguely mushroom-shaped clump of cheese almost gives him a heart attack.

By the time he’s nearly got everything finished, Mingyu is about certain the Good Morning Platter is the one with French toast, because if he came up with it like Junhui says he did, it has to be. He dusts three thick slices with powdered sugar, careful not to get any on the rest of the plate’s contents, and his hand is only a breath away from dinging his little bell when he remembers the final detail: a drizzle of patented (not really patented) Mirror sauce for the top of omelet.

Mingyu has no idea what it is—a mix of barbecue sauce and mayonnaise and hot sauce or something, but he can’t be sure since Junhui’s the only one who makes it—and he’s convinced it has to be disgusting. However, the Mirror Omelet is not the Mirror Omelet without a nice dousing of it, or so he’s been told by Junhui. Only after he’s drizzled a nice zebra imitation on top does he knock his fist into the bell, and then there is little to do but wait.

Chan strides over to deliver the food like he’s got all the time in the world, and Mingyu resists biting his nails only on the grounds that he doesn’t have much of them left to bite. Through his slim opening, he takes a look at the two guys for the first time, tries to figure out which is which and who ordered what. The Good Morning platter finds its home in front of the guy facing away from the entrance, puffy cheeks and a big grin, an earring hanging down from only one ear. Opposite him, Chan sets down the omelet and its accompanying order of hash browns. Mingyu wishes he could get a look at the other guy at least, see if he’s looking excited to eat the food or if the sight of the Mirror sauce appalls him, but it’s useless to hope for it unless an earthquake rolls through town that has no effect aside from turning that section of the floor about a hundred degrees counterclockwise. No such quake graces them.

At this point, it’s useless to wonder which has the blog. Mingyu tries subtly to hear if the voice of the earring man is the same one from earlier or different, but he doesn’t know. He can’t even remember what it sounded like. He thinks about asking Junhui, but as he watches their food slowly disappear, he knows it doesn’t matter. The dishes are out there already. They will either hate them or like them. Write a bad review or a good one. Sue or go on with life. All that’s left for him to do is hope they choose the second options.

He starts cleaning up again when it settles on him that eavesdropping is a bad habit and he’s in the middle of doing it again. Junhui watches him with keen eyes for a moment before joining in, swabbing up stray spots of grease and brushing excess strips of potato into the waste bin. An entire painstaking meal later, after Mingyu has cleaned off the front of the fridge three times and they’ve listened to _Sir Duke_ at least twice, the customers finally leave, and peace is restored. Chan strides back into the kitchen with a small slip of paper pinched between two fingers.

“They said they enjoyed their food,” he reports with a sparkling grin, waving the little note around like a trophy. “And they wrote down the blog name for me, so we can read the review when it’s up.”

“Great.”

Mingyu would probably rather not read the review at all. You can never trust the things those people say; besides, Chan’s too cute a kid for anyone to say to his face that they didn’t like the food. For the moment, all he cares about is that they’re gone, that he has at least a solid hour of rest before the next visitors come in, maybe even an hour and a half if he’s lucky. He’s going to live the rest of his day and forget it. At least, he was planning on that, but the front door’s bell rings again. His face falls into his hands with a groan.

 

It is several days before Mingyu succumbs to his own curiosity and checks the blog. _SunnySideSeok_ is the name of it, which Mingyu hopes is a good sign since he served the guy breakfast, and it’s a very loud place to be. The fonts, the colors, the pictures. Lots of emoticons. It takes a solid minute and a half for his eyes to adjust enough to look for what he came to find, but sure enough, he searches. Despite the boggling noise of everything on his computer screen, the entries are all meticulously organized, laced top to bottom with dutiful tags, so he finds the post about Mirror more quickly than he found retinal comfort.

The post is long, and at its end are tacked two images. One is just a picture of the Mirror Omelet, perfectly filtered to showcase every glorious drop of its disastrous sauce, and the other is a shot from the building’s outside, glowing sign over the entrance peeking out at the top, just over the heads of the two men taking up most of the frame. Mingyu recognizes one of them, doughy cheeks and earring, but the other one could have never stepped foot inside their door and he would be none the wiser.

It’s a sure thing that he’s handsome. He must have been the one sitting on the side facing the door, and god, is Mingyu sad for it. No offense to the other guy. But it’s certainly hard to compete with a smile like that. Mingyu’s certain he’s never seen a grin so wide, nor has he been so nearly moved to tears by looking at it. The review, he reminds himself. The important part. Words. Reading. He fights the way the picture draws him to get back to the meat of the matter, but the best he can manage is a light skim.

What surprises him most are the three full sentences devoted to praising the Mirror sauce alone. How could it be? He has to read them four times over to fully comprehend what his eyes are feeding his brain. No part of life could have prepared him for the task of accepting Junhui’s godless concoction as something worthy of praise. Hopefully Junhui hasn’t seen the post. Hopefully he never sees it, or Mingyu won’t hear the end of how the sauce is made with tender love and tenderer dedication before he gets lowered into his grave.

Of course, Junhui has seen the post. Beyond seeing it, he’s also printed out a color copy of it, circled the selection about his sauce in thick red marker, and tacked it up on the bulletin board next to the employee lockers. His smugness is the worst part.

“Just try it sometime, Mingyu,” he teases from where he washes dishes at the sink. “You can taste all the love and dedication.”

“Hell no.”

“You don’t trust our friend?”

Junhui loves to call customers friends, which Mingyu does not understand, but the thought of calling that really handsome guy from the picture a friend is dangerously appealing. It also hits him that he doesn’t know whether the one he’s picturing is even correct, and it frustrates him that he can’t remember who ordered what. If only he had a better memory. Or maybe it would be better if he just didn’t wish the blogger would be the one he’s picturing. Or maybe it would be better if a nice smile didn’t hit him so hard between the lungs. Junhui looks over to him after a minute of red silence.

“Why are you blushing?”

“What makes you think I’m blushing?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He sticks another plate into the drying rack with a loud clack. “Your red face, maybe?”

“It’s not red.”

“You know, Mingyu,” he says with a grin, elbow on the dripping edge of the sink, fingers fiddling with the ring hanging from around his neck, “if you’re madly and desperately in love with my incredible sauce—”

“I wish I could fire you.”

“We both know you wouldn’t.”

Against his better judgement, Mingyu visits the blog again. Rather than taking a second look at the post about Mirror, he looks at all the others, skips reading in favor of checking out the pictures. If his logic is working correctly, whichever guy runs the food blog will be the one in all of them, and whichever guy isn’t will only be in that one. He feels like he’s back in high school doing this, but somehow, he can’t get his hands to stop scrolling or his eyes to stop feverishly searching.

It’s very unhelpful that both of them are in almost every picture. A few extras come and go for the occasional review, but the two he saw in the restaurant are a mainstay, and there’s no way he’ll be able to remember which one of them ordered the omelet, much less distinguish who’s who based off nothing but the style of the blog posts. Outlook grim, he keeps scrolling further and further, until every last shred of hope is stripped to threads. But there is merit in threads.

Very close to the bottom, he finally finds a picture of just one individual, caption line reading _Soonyoung ditched me today_ _L._ He holds his breath for ten seconds before looking more closely at the picture to confirm. That smile. The crinkled eyes. Mingyu almost tears up, but the thought of tearing up about this makes him feel so juvenile he’s almost disgusted with himself. Instead, he sighs like a weight’s been strapped to his back and builds a cage over the trackpad with his fingers.

Knowing that someone handsome enjoyed your cooking is nice, but it also brings with it the recollection that there are so many customers who only come by one time. Especially since he runs a food review blog; those types are the kind to stop everywhere once and nowhere twice. Maybe it’s for the best. After all, he did lose his mind over Junhui’s awful sauce. Closing the laptop before him, Mingyu gently kisses goodbye the tiny seed of hey-maybe-somehow the post planted in his pocket.

Vines grab him full force anyway. It’s a week later, maybe two, and the door’s chime dings too soon after the restaurant opens for Mingyu to be comfortable. He watches through his wall-opening as Vernon meanders to greet the customer, one lone man in a thick coat to fight off the biting morning wind. His face is mostly hidden until it isn’t, and Mingyu is appalled by his own ability to recognize him so quickly. He swats Junhui on the shoulder.

“What’s the big idea?”

“That’s the guy,” Mingyu whispers to him. “With the, uh.” He can’t get the word to come to him, so he gestures at his own face, which does not do much to help it come to Junhui. “You know.” Junhui inspects him for a long time.

“Should I call the police?”

“Shut up.” He snaps his fingers. “The blog. The blog guy.”

“Oh yeah? I guess you’re right.” He moves closer to Mingyu to get a better look, eyes trained forward as Vernon offers a lazy smile and a halfhearted menu. “Why are you so tense?”

“I’m not.”

“That so?” Junhui sighs while he eyes Mingyu’s shoulders, bunched up by his ears. “Carry on, then.”

Vernon yawns at least twice before he’s finished taking the order, and Mingyu is thankful that he wasn’t the one working last time this guy came in. He wanders back toward the kitchen with lazy steps and slides the thin paper slip with the order onto the counter, eyes half-shut. “Mirror Platter,” he says. “Sausage, biscuits, scrambled. Extra side of the sauce.” Mingyu cranks up the heat on the burners and ignores the way Junhui grins at him.

It’s hard not to keep watch over a customer when they’re the only one in the entire restaurant, and Mingyu catches himself on more than one occasion just staring out at the sole occupied table while he wipes the counters down again, soft beats of whatever dated tune Junhui selected to get the day started drifting through his consciousness. He is asked twice for another cup of the Mirror sauce, and when at last their guest has fled, Vernon comes back and rests his chin on the edge of the countertop.

“He sends his compliments to the chef.” A yawn tears his lips apart again for a moment. “You’re both sexy.” Junhui’s laugh rattles the oven door.

 

Dumb luck is astounding. He comes back again. And again after that. For the next two and a half months, Mingyu sees him at least once every two weeks, and he thinks it’s particularly cruel to spread out the dates until Mingyu’s finally almost stopped thinking about him the next time he comes in. It’s also indirectly cruel that he won’t order anything without Mirror sauce and thus earns Mingyu a nice, shit-eating grin from Junhui’s direction every time.

No matter what he orders, Mirror sauce always comes with it. If he orders the omelet, it’s already there. If he orders a dish that doesn’t list it as a component on the menu, he’ll have it on the side, usually in more than one dose. He could ask for a glass of it to drink, and Mingyu wouldn’t even bat an eye. He doesn’t get it. Every time he watches Junhui ladle it into a tiny little silver dish, he understands it even less. One night, he comes in close to closing time, after Junhui’s already taken off for the night, and he’s forced to ladle it himself.

Once again, only one seat in the dining room is filled, and Mingyu has an even tougher time than usual busying himself without Junhui to bug him. For a long time, the guy just sits silently at the table, scrolling through his phone, and Mingyu wonders if he plans on leaving at all. Shortly after he decides on shutting down the ovens as a worthwhile distraction, Minghao’s fist is knocking into the bell on the counter. Even after Mingyu looks up at him, he keeps hitting it, eyes dead and determined.

“Can I help you with something?”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“He—what?”

“He said, ‘Can I speak to the chef?’ so I came to get you.”

“You told him yes?”

“Well, it’s not like you’re doing anything.”

“He—what, I—I’m _busy_.”

“Being a jackass?” Mingyu wishes so badly he could fire him. “Jesus, would you just go talk to him? It’s not like he’s gonna burn you at the stake or anything.” He walks away too quickly for Mingyu to tell him to make up an excuse about how busy he is. Not like Minghao would do it anyway.

Mingyu strides out with a light cough, acutely aware of the splotchy stains littering the front of his apron. He thinks about trying to dust his sleeves off or something first, but then he remembers all the favors the hairnet on his head isn’t doing him and decides to just show up as the disheveled truth. Sitting down at the table puts him at eye level with his customer, which is a terrible mistake, but he does it anyway.

“You asked for me?” God, his voice sounds awful. The handsome mug in front of him brightens up despite this, chin raising from where it was angled to look at his phone screen, and he stares at Mingyu for seven silent seconds before speaking.

“ _You’re_ the chef?” There is nothing subtle about the disbelief. It exists in every facet: face, voice, words. His eyes in particular are wide as a doll’s, and Mingyu hates his hairnet. He resists the urge to uselessly smooth his apron, but only by just a bit.

“I am,” he forces out through his teeth.

“Well, I was—the food is—you really—are you free sometime this week?”

“I—what?”

“I didn’t mean to say that,” the man corrects, cheeks red. “I, uh, meant to say the food was great. I’ve been coming here a lot, and it’s really always good. Really good.”

“Oh. Uh,” Mingyu hates the way he stumbles over simple stock phrases like this, “thank you.”

“But are you?” His smile is back, tentative but still shining. The pulse in Mingyu’s veins is unnecessarily quick.

“Sorry?”

“Free?” The guy shakes his head, soft curls of hair shuddering with him. “I mean, my name is Seokmin.”

“Good to meet you, Seokmin.” Mingyu thinks he’s probably a moron for not taking the time to find that detail on the blog, but it probably saves him a few creep points getting to learn it organically. He extends his hand over the table. “I’m Mingyu.”

“Mingyu.” Seokmin shakes his hand, fingers long and pretty wrapped around Mingyu’s. He holds on too long. “So?”

“So?”

“Are you free this week?” The curve of his lips is a little subdued, maybe nervous. Don’t think about it, Mingyu commands himself.

“I thought you didn’t mean to ask that,” he chokes.

“I didn’t,” Seokmin ventures, “but I said it, so I think I should still go with it. How about it?” His hand retreats like Mingyu’s just started to burn, and it leaves a cold ghost lingering around his palm. “Unless you aren’t interested in going on a date with a guy?”

Mingyu chokes. Usually, he thinks, the proposal would be a little more ambiguous. Two people out somewhere together doesn’t always have to be a date. This guy really doesn’t beat around the bush, though the creeping roses in his cheeks imply he might wish he did. A date? It’s been a while since he’s been on one of those. His mind flicks with an envious flame to the image of Junhui’s wedding ring laced around his neck, and Mingyu reaches his hand forward to capture Seokmin’s again.

“I am absolutely interested,” he blurts, surprised by his own sureness. He’s also surprised by how quickly Seokmin’s smile fills out. His cheeks stay red. “As for when I’m free…”

 

He makes a point not to tell Junhui about having a date, but somehow, he still seems to know. The way he looks at Mingyu the Saturday afternoon before his Sunday date is supersaturated with a sort of paternal obnoxiousness even he doesn’t usually have. Mingyu isn’t sure whether he’d rather ask him for advice or deck him, so he pretends instead not to notice the look in Junhui’s sparkling eyes. It’s not until they’re locking the front door and stepping out into the frigid air of the parking lot that Junhui actually says anything.

“What time tomorrow?”

“Sorry?”

“Your date.”

Mingyu slams a fist into his thigh. “How did you know?” Junhui just beams. “Did Minghao tell you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, which is code for yes and also code for Mingyu really wishes he could fire Minghao. “What time is it? Who?”

“That doesn’t sound like your business.”

“It’s the food blog guy, isn’t it?” It’s not even a question; he says it like he already knows. Mingyu gapes. “How can I be such a genius, you may be wondering. I myself don’t understand it.” He smacks Mingyu on the back. “He comes in all the time. He probably thinks he’s in love with you already. Don’t stress yourself out.”

“I’m not stressed out.”

“That so? My bad, then. Just tell me when you’re going out.”

“Why?”

“So I can call you and ruin it.” He tugs the band off its silver chain and nestles it back around his finger, laughing breath a tiny puff of cloud on the night air. “I’m just curious. You need something besides work.”

Even though he wants to say something back to that, something about the genuine sentiment of the words touches Mingyu somewhere tender, prods him right where it hurts. Truthfully, he wants to give a nice example of a non-work thing he already has, but nothing comes to him. And maybe it’s because there isn’t anything. The thought does not comfort him.

“Afternoon. We’re going to see a play and have dinner.”

“A play? Very artsy of you.” He nudges Mingyu in the side before climbing into his car. “Have fun.” Mingyu doesn’t even have it in him to snap back with something, so he just watches the car grumble to life and glide out of the parking lot, a speeding ghost in the cool night.

The play turns out to be a musical instead, which Mingyu does not mind at all. Something about the way Seokmin leans closer over the armrest and warbles along quietly despite not quite knowing the words is deeply charming. He’s still singing them when they leave the theater, too, though he’s started getting the rhythms jumbled up, melts the songs into one another without noticing. Mingyu takes a glance at him and gulps. God, is he handsome.

By the time they make it to a restaurant for dinner, the sun has long begun to dip below the edge of the wintry evening sky, hazy shades of purple painted over every rooftop in sight. The warmth of the building’s interior hugs Mingyu the second they step foot through the door; while he’s thankful for the way it makes his hands feel less like they’re going to fall off, he’s less than pleased about the way it augments the nervous sweat pooling under his arms. It’s far too hot inside to keep his coat on, but he dreads what removing it will look like.

Seokmin sits down too quickly for him to decide which fate is worse, so he ends up sitting down with the coat still on. It makes him feel clunky and obvious even though nobody in the restaurant is looking at him. Nobody but Seokmin, of course, who is just as handsome under yellow restaurant lights as he had been in the pictures, as he had been outside just now beneath the glow of streetlamps. Mingyu opens his mouth to speak and coughs instead, the loud kind of hacking one where you start to get self-conscious about people staring at you because you’ve been coughing nonstop for so long. Seokmin looks concerned for a minute, then looks like he’s about to laugh, then looks concerned again right before Mingyu finishes. Then he looks like he’s going to laugh again.

“Are you laughing at me?” Mingyu asks, tears budding in the corners of his eyes. Seokmin cracks a wide smile and tries to act like he doesn’t.

“No, I was—” He cracks with a giggle and works to pretend he was clearing his throat, but Mingyu’s about a million bucks from buying it. “I mean, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” As soon as he’s said it, Seokmin bursts into frenzied laughter, shielding his mouth with both hands but not barring a single decibel from escaping. Mingyu feels the eyes of the restaurant’s other patrons on them and once again gains acute awareness of the outdoor winter coat still on his body. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” He shamelessly makes no attempt to quit laughing.

“Then why are you _still_ laughing?”

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Laughter keeps up for another minute before petering out behind the hands he drags down his face. A smile still sits wide once they’ve cleared. “I just, you know, think it’s funny that we’re here.” Mingyu blinks. “I mean, you know, when I went to that diner with Soonyoung, I just didn’t think… you know? And when I asked to see the chef, I didn’t expect you to be so good-looking.” Mingyu momentarily gags on the water he isn’t drinking.

“Is that why you asked me out?”

“I was surprised,” Seokmin tells him with a shrug. “But I think it was one of my better decisions.” He turns his smile then to the server who’s come to greet them, and the young man smiles back in a warm way Mingyu wishes Minghao could learn to.

When their food arrives, Mingyu is in no hurry to finish eating. It’s not that it’s so delicious he can’t bear it, rather that Seokmin makes it seem like it is, makes the moment stretch for miles while he saws his chicken into bite-sized pieces. They should be gearing up to leave—the check’s already been set down on the table—but he still pushes potatoes around in circles on his plate to stall. Very high school. He does not enjoy his own feelings about it, but he also doesn’t stop.

“So,” Seokmin begins, glancing between Mingyu’s pitiful potatoes and arguably more pitiful eyes, “I hope it isn’t too early to say this, but can we go out again?”

“Really?” In his surprise, Mingyu spears the starch with the tips of his fork and has to work very subtly to scrape it back off.

“If that’s alright? I’ve been having a really nice time. And I’d like to have a nice time again.” His smile is so hopeful it makes Mingyu wonder if he could say no even if this were the worst date of his life. Probably not.

Junhui gives him a look at work, but Mingyu won’t be bullied into saying something about it. But he’s also smiling too much, which Junhui counts as a victory. Which isn’t fair. But if Mingyu says it’s not fair, Junhui will smugly ask him what he’s talking about, and Mingyu will have to explain, which will mean he’s mentioning it, which is loss number two. Working in this godforsaken restaurant is impossible.

“Hey,” Junhui says after they lock up, hands shoved deep into his pockets, elbow jabbing at Mingyu’s back. “I’m glad it went well.”

Mingyu hides his grin until Junhui is jetting down the road.

 

Another date turns into many more dates turns into several months of real, official dating. Mingyu’s last romantic partner had been in college, and it ended because he was too busy or something; thankfully, Seokmin is very flexible about Mingyu living most of his life at Mirror and second-most of his life at home. He still comes in often enough, too, still orders from the staple set of menu items he’s decided to limit himself to, and he always waits to catch Mingyu’s glance and wave before he leaves. It’s simple stuff. Mingyu just likes him.

Sometime around February, they curl into Mingyu’s sofa to watch the oversaturated movies that come on the Hallmark channel. It’s because Seokmin likes them, but he always seems to fall asleep the second they put them on, and Mingyu ends up suffering through them alone because he’s too scared to risk changing the channel and putting a frown on Seokmin’s face whenever he does wake. Today, Seokmin’s unusually awake even after a full movie and a half, fiddling with the holes wearing in near the neck of Mingyu’s sweater. It’s because he always fiddles with them that they’re wearing in that way, but Mingyu just lets it happen.

“Say, Mingyu,” he mumbles, “can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“Maybe this is, like, weird, but, uh… what’s in the Mirror sauce?”

Mingyu tenses. Seokmin has to notice because he’s _right there_ , but Mingyu wishes he wouldn’t. It’s always about the goddamn sauce, isn’t it? Seokmin keeps worrying at the holes, but Mingyu’s tongue is like lead in his mouth. He can’t make something up at risk of Seokmin trying to make it and realizing it’s fake. He can’t text Junhui, either, because that would be way too obvious. He’s never been a strong liar—he took an acting class in high school and almost failed.

“Trade secret,” he spits out. Seokmin laughs until he realizes Mingyu isn’t taking it back.

“Wait, really? You can’t tell me?”

“Nope. Super top secret.”

“I…see.” Seokmin does not look like he buys it. And he shouldn’t, but Mingyu still wants him to. “Well. Uh, sorry for asking, I guess.” As much as he prays, Seokmin does not fall asleep. He learns that these movies are fifty times more uncomfortable when you watch them together but don’t say a thing.

The next time he works with Junhui, Mingyu doesn’t waste any time with idle chatter. He stomps over while Junhui’s doing the dishes and hunches beside him, deliberately not meeting eyes. Instead, he focuses on the ring about his neck, which will be a great bargaining chip if Mingyu can snatch it off him in time.

“Do you need something?”

“Tell me how to make the Mirror sauce.” The dish in Junhui’s hands falls into the sink with a noise that makes Chan poke his head back in concern.

“I thought you hated the Mirror sauce,” Junhui says with a thin smile, acting like he didn’t just drop a plate in the sink.

“I do. But—”

“Seokmin loves it,” Junhui concludes in a heavy whisper. He nods his head. “Well, I can’t tell you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“You’re a true scumbag.”

“Hey, listen,” Junhui says, leaning in and resting a hand on Mingyu’s shoulder. He looks around like he’s making sure the government isn’t listening in. “Maybe we can make a deal.” A deal, indeed. Mingyu is in the middle of calculating the easiest way to take his wedding ring hostage, but he’s not getting anywhere. “What are you doing after we close tonight?”

“Uh, sleeping?”

“Well, skip that. Come to my house later.”

“Jesus.”

“What?” He picks the dish back up and resumes his previous scrubbing. “I don’t make the rules, Mingyu. You can either come or live your whole life in ignorance.” Mingyu blows out a sigh through his nose.

So there he finds himself, following Junhui down poorly-lit backroads into a part of town he’s sure he’s never been before. The house where they finally come to a stop is a tiny little thing, baby porch surrounded by freshly overturned flowerbeds not quite showing signs of green yet. Through the window, Mingyu can see the lights are on, which either means someone is home or Junhui is incredibly wasteful. Maybe both. He braces himself when they go through the door.

“I’m home,” Junhui calls to the house, shuffling his coat off to throw it in an overstuffed closet by the entryway.

“Welcome back,” calls a gentle voice. It then follows with, “Why does it sound like you have four feet?”

“I brought a friend.”

At the end of the short hallway, a man’s figure appears, slight and graceful, and pads across the hardwood to wrap its arms around Junhui and kiss at his lips. Mingyu is thrilled he doesn’t have to be bitterly jealous of that anymore, especially so when the guy leans around of the side of Junhui’s head to menacingly whisper into his ear, “Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing someone over?”

“It just came up,” Junhui whispers back. Mingyu does not fail to notice that neither of them are making much of an effort to actually be quiet.

“I want breakfast in bed on Sunday.” Junhui sighs.

“Fine.”

“Uh,” Mingyu gargles, “I’m Mingyu? I work with Junhui at the diner.”

“Oh yeah?” Junhui’s husband, Mingyu assumes, backs up and extends his hand. “I’m Joshua. Junnie’s told me plenty about you, but I never expected you to be so tall!” The ring of gold around his finger is warm where it touches Mingyu’s hand. His smile sparkles with his eyes. “It’s great to meet you.”

“He wants to know about the sauce,” Junhui tells him, and Joshua’s smiling mug falls away to be replaced by a firm line of lips and two dubious eyes.

“What about the sauce?”

“How to make it?” Mingyu does not understand why he feels like he’s unwittingly walked into apprehension by the FBI, but Joshua’s eyes are definitely giving it to him. Why does Joshua even care?

“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Joshua suggests, and then he is leading their small party away.

Their kitchen is small, but still nice. Mingyu sees Junhui’s stacked a whole array of pans on top of the fridge where they must have run out of cabinet space some time ago, the spice rack behind the stove so full some of the bottles seem they’re about to take a dive onto the burners. Unfortunately, he can’t take too much time to soak things in because he’s too focused on the harshly whispered deliberation of the couple before him, and then Joshua is eyeing him from across the counter like a jewel thief with both palms still on the diamond.

“Well, Mingyu,” he says after an uncomfortable minute of staring down, “I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can tell you how to make that sauce.”

“Sorry?” Mingyu glances back and forth between them. Junhui’s eyes are anywhere but Mingyu. “Can’t Junhui just teach me how to make it, then?” Joshua laughs.

“Junhui does _not_ know how to make that sauce.”

“Excuse me?” Mingyu whips his gaze to Junhui, whose hands are already raised in defense.

“Listen,” he grunts, “I’ve got a pretty good idea by now, I think.”

“You don’t make the sauce?” Mingyu howls. “What the—what the fuck? What?”

“It’s a Hong family secret recipe,” Joshua and Junhui tell him in chilling unison. Joshua’s voice is proud, but Junhui’s smacks of fatigue. “My mother would kill me if I ever told anyone outside the family,” Joshua continues, “and even though Junhui is in the family, she won’t let me tell him, either. I can’t risk it while she’s still kicking.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mingyu stares at the wall, and in it, he sees nothing but Seokmin being crushed by eternal disappointment. “But Seokmin…”

“Chin up,” Junhui tells him. Very rich considering he brought Mingyu over knowing fully that there was no chance of getting that recipe uncovered. “We did our best. You’ll just have to tell him you don’t know how to make it.”

“It’s really not that simple.”

“Don’t worry too much, Mingyu,” Joshua tells him, face returned to its easy smile. “Give it maybe thirty years, and Junhui will get to know, which puts it just one step closer to you.”

 

Mingyu figures the easiest way to soften the blow is to make Seokmin forget how good he thinks the Mirror sauce is, and he figures the easiest way to do that is to cook him many things that don’t contain it. It starts off a little simpler, with quiches and cinnamon rolls from scratch, but gradually evolves into whatever thing he can think of that even a foodie like Seokmin has never tried before. Today is one he’s sure will be new: cheese blintzes. The blend between sweet and savory is sure to make him forget all about that ridiculous sauce.

“Mingyu?” Seokmin is watching him carefully from beyond his plate, prodding with his fork at the raspberry on the side. The food is only half-finished, which makes the nerves in Mingyu’s gut clench.

“Is it not good?” He tries to sound like a kicked puppy while also trying to sound like he’s not trying to sound like a kicked puppy. He was so sure Seokmin was going to like these while he was prepping everything, dusting powdered sugar over the tops and placing berries in strategic locations.

“No, it’s really good!” Seokmin assures, setting down his fork. “I just… I mean, can I ask something?” Bad sign. Mingyu gulps.

“What is it?”

“Why are you cooking me all these things lately?”

“Ah.” Mingyu thumbs at the hem of his apron. “Do you, uh… not like it?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, shy grin blooming at the corners of his lips. “I love it when you cook for me, and everything is really delicious. But, you know, you used to do it like once every week or two, and now it’s, like, all the time.”

Mingyu bites his cheek. He remembers the unforgiving look on Joshua’s face and the split second of hopelessness in Junhui’s usually so energetic eyes, and then he remembers his own mother telling him as a child that honesty is the best policy. Then he screams within the confines of his mind because he absolutely hates this.

“Alright. I need to tell you something.”

“You wouldn’t cheat on me, would you?” Seokmin blurts, mouth overtaken by a delicate frown. He reaches across the table to grab Mingyu’s hand, and his fingers are stiff and bony like always, grip unrelenting. “You wouldn’t. Mingyu.”

“What? Of course I wouldn’t. It’s not… That’s not it.”

“Oh, thank god.” His face eases, but his hand doesn’t. “What is it, then?”

“About the Mirror sauce.” Deep breath in, deep breath out. One more deep breath in. Back out. And one more. “I don’t know what’s in it.” He watches Seokmin’s face carefully. “Junhui doesn’t even know what’s in it. It’s his husband’s special secret recipe and I’m not allowed to know. I’m so sorry.” Though he waits, not a single of Seokmin’s muscles budges. “You’re not gonna break up with me over this, right?”

Seokmin laughs then, an overwhelmingly welcome sound. He laughs until Mingyu is laughing with him, until the table between them is shaking and Mingyu’s stomach and head both hurt, all the while leaving his fingers curled around Mingyu’s palm. There are few words in any language to capture the relief Mingyu feels at the crinkled eyes across from him, and realization smacks him over the head that he is in love. With the man across from him, who loves that atrocious mystery sauce and awful Hallmark movies and runs a food blog that Mingyu has started to feel might be more akin to destiny. Cheese blintzes are not an appropriate backdrop for this realization, but there they sit unfinished, and Mingyu has to accept it.

“You… are really something,” Seokmin tells him once calmed. “I hope you don’t think I’ve been dating you just to get closer to the truth of the sauce.”

“I mean… no.”

“Hey.” He fixes his eyes on Mingyu’s, steady and even, and he’s smiling, but there’s no joke shining behind his pupils. “Are you ready for this?” A breath. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Mingyu rattles back. It feels incredible to say. “Yes. God. I love you. I am _in love_ with you.”

Seokmin chuckles when he leans across the table to plant a kiss on Mingyu’s lips, and Mingyu can’t help chuckling back into it. He tastes like raspberry and ricotta with just a dusting of powdered sugar, warm and sweet and savory and good. The human embodiment of a cheese blintz. The planet earth’s most handsome cheese blintz. He leans back into his seat and nudges the plate across the table, closer to Mingyu, picks the fork up and hands it over.

“Why don’t you have some?” He rests the fork too close to Mingyu’s hand for him to say no. “It’s delicious.”

With a warm hand, Mingyu grabs the fork and slices himself off a little piece, sure to swipe a stray raspberry from the plate’s edge on the way to his mouth. It tastes just like he knew it would: raspberry and ricotta. Just a dusting of powdered sugar. Something about that flavor feels so beautiful.

“You’re right,” he says, chest swelling to hold a garden of flowers. Seokmin’s eyes crinkle when he smiles back at him. “It is delicious.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to all for reading!! i just get slower and slower at writing these days... meh. i hope you liked this if you read it! once again this is a really cute pairing that sadly doesn't get enough love, so i hope they'll be given more of a chance in the future! as always, feedback is greatly appreciated! see you!


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